Page:Wives of the prime ministers, 1844-1906.djvu/204

WIVES OF THE PRIME MINISTERS of his wife: 'She feels just as I could most wish; she has all the tenderness of a woman joined to the greatest firmness and resolution.' I was present at his Consecration at Lambeth Chapel, that fine touching service never to be heard without emotion, but in the present instance how peculiarly affecting. He was leaving his native land and all that he held most dear. I believe there was scarcely one dry eye. May I be the better for this day!

"William and I visited the Bishop at his house at Eton, so as to be present at the farewell dinner given by Mr. Coleridge the day before his farewell sermon at Windsor. There were forty present. I sat between Judge Patterson and Dr. Hawtrey. Afterwards Mr. Coleridge proposed the health of the Bishop in a touching speech, for which the Bishop returned thanks. Devoted to the service of his God, he is able to feel the step he has taken not as a sacrifice but as a privilege; he unites unusual tenderness of feeling to great manliness of character. The scene was an extraordinary one. Casting the eye down a long dinner-table, most of the guests were in tears, men and women sobbing, poor old Dr. Keate (to-day was my first introduction to him), his head upon the table, his face buried in his pocket-handkerchief. I never witnessed 168